ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,416,911, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to Fisher-Rosemount Systems Inc. (Round Rock, Texas).
"Modular process control system" was invented by Mark J. Nixon (Thorndale, Texas) and Anthony Amaro Jr. (Cedar Park, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In one aspect, a micro-service control architecture provides a modular, flexible platform for designing, diagnosing, updating and/or expanding process control systems. Each service is containerized to provide portability and isolation from other components of the process control system. In another aspect, a function block diagram includes a "shadow" block that acts as an interface to an exte...